Summers Resigns After Five Years as Harvard President

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers announced last week that he will resign as of June thirtieth. The former Treasury secretary has led the nation's oldest and richest university for five years.

Lawrence Summers

Education experts say one of his main difficulties was a power struggle with professors who control undergraduate education.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences had been expected to consider a measure this week expressing a lack of support in his leadership. He lost a similar "no confidence" vote a year ago.

That happened after he suggested that biological differences may be a reason for the few women in top science and math jobs. Critics called him sexist.

Mister Summers apologized. But his comments led Harvard to begin working toward increasing the number of women in science.

Soon after he arrived at Harvard, he angered minority groups by criticizing Cornell West, a well-known black studies professor. Mister Summers accused him of grading his students too highly and not carrying out serious research. The dispute led Mister West to leave Harvard for Princeton University.

Mister Summers also criticized grade inflation in other classes.

A recent conflict involved the resignation of Arts and Sciences Dean William Kirby. Some professors believe Mister Summers dismissed him. Mister Kirby has said it was a joint decision.

Opponents say Mister Summers was not able to lead the university effectively. Supports say he made too many enemies as he worked to improve the university by changing it.

Among his efforts, Mister Summers helped make it possible for more students from poor families to attend Harvard. Yet some experts on higher education say his experience at Harvard could affect reform efforts at other schools.

The Harvard student newspaper, the Crimson, recently asked undergraduates how they felt about Mister Summers’ leadership. Fifty-seven percent said they supported him. Nineteen percent wanted him to leave.

The university is now searching for a new leader. Former president Derek Bok will serve until one is found.

Mister Summers plans to spend a year away from Harvard and return as an economics professor.

Harvard is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was established in sixteen thirty-six. Gifts and investments have increased its endowment wealth to more than twenty-five thousand million dollars.

Women Around the World Continue to Struggle for Their Rights

A woman votes in Uganda's elections on February 23

And I’m Steve Ember with Explorations in VOA Special English. Today we tell about efforts women are making around the world to gain equality.

In the past few months, women have been elected the leaders of Germany, Liberia and Chile. Throughout the world, women are taking steps to improve their rights and increase their freedom. Yet, they have also suffered problems in their struggle for equality.

In many parts of the world, women have almost no voice in politics and government. Their human rights are also denied. Sexual attack, violence in the home, even murder are crimes that women in many parts of the world face daily.

The international community has taken steps to protect and enforce the rights of women. More than twenty-five years ago, the United Nations approved a treaty called the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The nineteen seventy-nine treaty is considered a bill of rights for women.

To date, one hundred eighty nations have approved the treaty. But, women in many of these countries are still treated as unequal citizens. The U.N. estimates half a million women die every year while having babies. The number of women and girls in the world infected with H.I.V. and AIDS is growing. Often this is the result of a sexual attack. And, violence against women, forced labor and human trafficking of young females continue.

Janet Walsh is an official of the organization Human Rights Watch. She says many nations that approved the treaty accept mistreatment of women as normal. These governments, she says, see human rights violations against women as private family or cultural issues.

Experts point to Russia as one example. A report by the human rights group Amnesty International says about nine thousand women in Russia are killed each year by a husband, partner or other family member.

Amnesty International worker Friederike Behr says Russian officials are doing little to solve the problem. She says they do not recognize violence in the family as a serious crime. Mizz Behr says that Russia needs to pass criminal laws that recognize violence against women as a violation of human rights.

Kashmiri women reach out for aid three days after the powerful South Asia earthquake on October 11

Experts say violence against women in their homes is a serious problem in Pakistan as well. Such domestic violence is considered culturally acceptable and a personal issue. Human Rights Watch says that Pakistani women struggle in other ways as well. Girls are forced into marriages, young women are kept out of school, and men have complete control over their families.

Experts say hundreds of Pakistani women are murdered every year by their families. They are victims of so-called honor killings. They are suspected of doing something to dishonor their families, such as having a sexual relationship. The women are either killed or injured so severely that they are forced to leave their families.

The Pakistani government has declared honor killings a crime punishable by death. It has also taken steps to protect women who marry against their parents’ wishes.

Human rights activists in Pakistan have also launched a campaign against a severe Islamic law known as the Hudood Ordinance. Under this law, women who fail to prove that they have been raped face criminal charges. Women’s rights activists say the law protects rapists and punishes victims.

They say the law has sent more than twenty thousand mostly innocent women to prison. However, religious groups in Pakistan oppose any changes to the law. They say it protects traditional Islamic values.

Islamic traditions have influenced women’s rights in the Middle East as well. For example, Sheikha Yousef Hasan Al Gerifi was campaigning for city council in Qatar. Her family refused to let her put pictures of herself in campaign information. Most Qatari women cover themselves, including their faces, when they appear in public. But she won her election anyway.

However, most women in Arab nations have a very hard time getting elected. In Bahrain, for example, thirty-nine women ran for local and national office in two thousand two. Not a single woman was elected.

Political scientist Hala Mustafa at the Al-Ahram Foundation in Egypt says few Arab countries have a sizeable number of women in government. But, small changes are beginning. In Egyptian parliamentary elections last year, only four female candidates were elected. President Hosni Mubarak increased the total number of women in parliament by giving them five of the ten appointed seats after the election.

In Kuwait, women were given the right to vote for the first time in May. Their first election will be next year. Women’s rights activists say they are excited that women’s voices will finally be heard through their votes. Yet, they say they do not expect much to come of it.

Change is also starting to happen in Jordan. Two years ago, the government approved a measure to guarantee that at least six women were elected to parliament. Morocco and Algeria have high numbers of women in parliament compared to other countries in the area.

The fight for a political voice and equal rights for women in Africa is also gaining strength. In January, Liberia swore in its first elected female leader. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says one of her goals is to guarantee that men who sexually attack women are punished. Liberia’s temporary parliament took steps in this direction recently by passing a rape law. It calls for sentences of between seven years and life in jail depending on the seriousness of the crime.

Rape is also a serious problem in refugee camps in other countries, including Ivory Coast. Women’s rights activists there say the camps are not secure. So women become victims of sexual crimes in the one place they are seeking safety.

In Kenya and Uganda, the lives of women are linked to their husbands. Laws in these countries give women the right to own and control land and property. Yet, tradition and custom often prevent them from receiving what is rightfully theirs.

When a women’s husband dies, his relatives often seize the land and possessions. The woman is forced to leave her home. In cases when a marriage ends, joint property is not evenly divided. Often, the man claims everything.

Women’s activists in Africa are trying to change this.

Women in the United States have an easier time owning property. They also have more educational, professional and political choices than in the past. Yet, they still face struggles in the fight for equality.

Susan Scanlan heads the National Council of Women’s Organizations. She says the average American woman has a high school education but did not go to college. She owns a house with her husband and has a job to help support her family. In addition to working away from her home, she is also the main caregiver of children at home.

The average woman in the United States often cannot pay for health insurance. She is also concerned about having enough money to live after she retires. American women are generally paid less than men.

Sociology Professor Robert Jackson of New York University has written on women’s issues. He says that American women have more legal rights and a better chance to succeed now than in the late nineteenth century. Considerable progress was made during the women’s movement in the nineteen sixties. At that time, more and more females entered college and started jobs. Professor Jackson believes that pressure from increasingly educated and skilled women now will lead to more equality in the United States.

But around the world, the struggle for women’s rights and equality is progressing slowly. Women are about half the population in the world. But experts wonder if they will ever have social, financial, legal, political and professional equality with men.

Songs

Puff, the magic dragon

Sung by Peter Paul & Mary     

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff

And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff, oh

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Together they would travel on boat with billowed sail

Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff's gigantic tail

Noble kings and princes would bow whene'er they came

Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name, oh

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys

Painted wings and giants's rings make way for other toys.

One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more

And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain

Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.

Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave

So, Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave, oh

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Love me tender

Sung by Elvis Presley     

Love me tender, love me sweet;

Never let me go.

You have made my life complete.

And I love you so.

Love me tender, love me true;

All my dream fulfill,

For my darling, I love you.

And I always will.

Love me tender, love me long;

Take me to your heart,

For it's there that I belong,

And we'll never part.

Love me tender, love me true;

All my dream fulfill,

For my darling, I love you.

And I always will.

Love me tender, love me dear;

Tell me your are mine,

I'll be yours through all the year,

Till the end of time

Love me tender, love me true;

All my dream fulfill,

For my darling, I love you.

And I always will.

Here I am

Sung by Bryan Adams      

Here I am - this is me

There's no where else on Earth I'd rather be

Here I am - it's just me and you

And tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a new world - it's a new start

It's alive with the beating of - young hearts

It's a new day - it’s a new plan

I've been waiting for you

Here I am

Here we are - we've just begun

And after all this time - our time has come

Ya here we are - still goin' strong

Right here in the place where we belong

It's a new world - it's a new start

It's alive with the beating of - young hearts

It's a new day - it’s a new plan

I've been waiting for you

Here I am

Here I am - this is me

There's no where else on Earth I'd rather be

Here I am - it's just me and you

And tonight we make our dreams come true

It's a new world - it's a new start

It's alive with the beating of - young hearts

It's a new day - it’s a new plan

I've been waiting for you

It's a new world - it's a new start

It's alive with the beating of - young hearts

It's a new day - it’s a new plan

I've been waiting for you

Here I am - next to you

And suddenly the world is all brand new

Here I am - where I'm gonna stay

Now there's nothin standin in our way

Here I am - this is me